Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1887-08-11
THE BIG NEWSPAPER.
HAS THE LIMIT OF The READERS
PATIENCE BEEN REACHED?

The Newspaper of the Future May be
Smaller han the Present Average.
Condensation in the Judicious Sense.
The Pictorial Practice.
When the big newspaper becomes still big
ger how is it to be delivered? Newsdealers
and carriers have already complained of the
hardness of the task of handling so many
pounds of paper. How will it be when still
more pounds are addedl Why, it will be nm
possible, certainly at the prevailing low rates.
The days of the cheap press will be passed.
The price must be very considerably in
creased to induce the miidlemen TO dispose of
Mr.. Jones' larger sheets and T. ore of them.
The newspaper of the future viii be smaller
instead of larger than the present average.
And it viii be no worse a newspaper on that
account, but rather better This result will
be reached by condensation in the judicious
sense. l don't mean by this @boiling down
everything" so that there is little of spirit or
substance left in the article or graph, or
anything much but the heading. The process
to which l refer is condensation by exclusion.
The newspa,gr Of the future will publish
only what it is really worth while to publish.
The newspaper of the present prints a vast
mass Of matter upon which space is wasted,
which nobody is profted by reading or actu-
ally wants TO read, or having read recalls
moment later. If all OF this were omitted the
newspaper would shrink rapidly.
IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS.
But it is not only the literary department
that condensation is aIvantageously practi-
cable. The commercial department is as in
viting field. l doubt that the present sys-
tenn of advertising viii be in operation in
1887, or even IN 1881 An illustration will
point the case II III tie newspapers in New
York should agree 10 double their advertising
rates, and if in consequence the advertisers
should buy half as much space as heretofore
it Is, of course, mathematically demonstra-
bic that the newspapers would be no worse
off pecuniarily. l think it is morally demon
strable that the advertisers would be no
worse of III respect to the publicity of their
business but that all hands by and by would
be great deal better off in every way
The advertisement would attract very
nearly as much attention. 1t would get
quite as much if the advertisers agreed to
stand upon a level. 1t is the competition in
magnitude-the struggle for a longer an
nouncement and for bigger letters, the enor-
nous alphabetical blotches which disfgure
so many daily journals-that characterizes
the system Then there is another sort Of
competition within the paper itself, between
the literary and commercial columns
THE PICTORIAL PRACTICE
Mr.. Ottendorfer says: Il think the habit of
presenting illustrations in such journals is
foolish and in very bad taste" l certainly
agree with him; but if We should trace the
genesis of the pictorial practice might we not
find that it originated in part in supposed
necessity for an offset to the black, street
post-r letters OF the advertisements? There
was, perhaps, a disposition tc restore the bal
ance between the departments, and to do it
bloated headings, monstrous "cuts" and diffuse
padding OF all sorts were resOrted to. This
policy of the literary half in turn stimulates
the commercial half to fresh efforts
If journalism could recover from this mad
ness Of magnitude the two sides would still
act and react upon each other, but in a more
wholesome way. Both would learn that
there are effective opportunities in compact
ness of space and moderation of statement
1t seems to me that the hope of journalism
lies in some such reform as this. Otherwise
its fate threatens to resemble that of an over
grown, gigantic vegetable, not nutritious,
but running to useless pulp and unproductive
seed.
think the newspaper of the future viii
have smaller pages and fewer of them The
tendency almost everywhere seems away
from the blanket form.-Cor. Brooklyn
Eaola